Abstract

Three types of cationic polyfluorenes with a different number of ionic groups are synthesized to modulate their solubility in water and the interactions with anionic oligonucleotide probes (DNA‐C). Increasing the charge density improves the water‐solubility of conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) but decreases its optical antenna effect in the electrostatic sensory platform (CPE/DNA‐C), resulting in low fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) signal. With increasing charge density in CPE, the concentration of conjugated units in CPE/DNA‐C decreases at [+]:[−] = 1:1, after which little driving force is expected to bring positive CPEs and negative DNA‐C into close proximity for efficient FRET. CPF2 with 2 ionic groups (per repeat unit) and hydrophilic polyether side‐chains exhibits good water‐solubility and a higher FRET signal with an enhanced signal on/off ratio. In addition, the charge density in CPEs modulates the range of sensory responses by forming a tighter or weaker electrostatic CPE/DNA‐C complex, which perturbs the probe‐target binding interactions. image

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